Breakage and loss of service on public telephone handsets is very costly both in maintenance and repair costs to the telephone company service provider and to the public in loss of use of public telephone facilities. Every year, in the United States alone, 2-2.5 million telephone handset repairs or replacements become necessary as a result of what is usually intentional damage or vandalism to a public telephone handset. These repairs cost telephone server providers upwards of $200.00 per service call, or approximately half a billion dollars annually. This cost figure represents both real and intangible costs, such as repair costs, lost revenues, and lost goodwill and customer confidence (a public telephone user will typically avoid returning to a booth that was "out of order" the last time it was visited).
Some of the ways in which telephone handsets are damaged are (1) separation of the handset cable from the transmitter end of the handset, usually caused by a sudden forceful yank or jerk to the handset either as an intentional act of vandalism or as a spontaneous act of frustration; (2) breakage of the receiver or transmitter end of the handset or of the handgrip portion of the handset as a result of a hammering blow with the handset to some other part of the public phone apparatus or enclosing structure. As a result of either kind of damage, the handset operation is typically either severely impaired or broken off entirely, thus placing that particular public phone out of service.
There are no handset covers presently known which address and ameliorate the above identified problems. A particular design of handset is known, which was developed for use aboard warships in World War II, where a cushioning material is integrally designed as part of the handset, although the primary purpose of the cushioning was to protect the user and not the handset. However, this cushion design is not adaptable to installation over a conventional modern telephone handset. Handset covers are also known for achieving both decorative and/or sanitary purposes, or for achieving a minor degree of protection from such household hazards as stains and nicks to the surface of the telephone handset. However none of these devices are designed or adaptable to the purpose of quick and semipermanent installation upon a public phone handset which can be the object of intentional or unintentional harsh physical abuse, and none of them are capable of preventing breakage to the handset parts or preserving the integrity of the handset as a functional unit even if the handset parts do become broken.